


Absolution

by thesometimeswarrior



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s03e12-13 Phantom Planet, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Mother-Son Relationship, Post-Phantom Planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 14:55:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6055771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"'Danny,' she beseeched softly. 'Can you forgive me?'"</p><p>After discovering her son's true identity, Maddie Fenton has some things to atone for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Absolution

_“Jasmine, where’s your brother?”_

Her daughter, tears in her eyes, turned, seemingly even against her will, to look toward the crashed Specter Speeder, which was burning in the mountain. But that couldn’t be right. _Danny_ wasn’t in the Speeder. The only perso— _being_ —in the Speeder had been the Ghost Boy—

_Oh._

But…no, that couldn’t be, it couldn’t, because the Ghost Boy was always brawling with other ghosts, always in life-threatening situations. She had herself hunted the Ghost Boy: pointed a gun at it— _him_?, threatened to destroy i— _him_ , to dissect him under a scalpel for study. _She_ had done that. And now, the Ghost Boy was burning in the Specter Speeder, and even with his intangibility properties, he would not be able to phase through the burning ectoplasm in the explosion. He was burning, undoubtedly, he was dying or dead already. They were all going to perish, but he was dying alone--and painfully. And that couldn’t be her boy, it couldn’t, it _couldn’t_! "Jack! _Where's Danny?"_

She raised her eyebrows at Jasmine in a frantic question, and when her daughter responded with a small, sad nod, Maddie Fenton knew that she herself was also already dead.

“Look! The portal!” Sam Mason shouted, and Maddie turned to see her boy leading what seemed to be the entire Ghost Zone to the apparatus to save them all. She sighed in relief and in disbelief and in pride.

* * *

Later, after the world was momentarily safe, if entirely new, Maddie approached her son’s bedroom. After a moment of hesitation she knocked on the door.

“Come in!” called Danny. As she entered the room, she found the boy lying on his bed. His legs reached the end—and the mother was struck by how much her son had grown; he was a man now more than a boy. When, she wondered, had that occurred?

“Sweetie,” Maddie said finally. “I made you some cookies. Chocolate chip—your favorite.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Danny sat up, helping himself to cookie off of the tray his mother had brought. “They’re delicious.”

Maddie moved her son’s desk chair next so that it stood next to the bed and sat down in it. “How are you, Danny?”

“Exhausted,” he responded. “But I can’t tell you how good it feels to be able to tell you that.”

The woman sighed. She was increasingly coming to realize the full extent of the burden her son had had to carry on his own for past year. “Danny,” she beseeched softly. “Can you forgive me?”

“Forgib you?” He asked with his mouth full of cookie, surprised. Evidently, whatever the boy had expected, this was not it. He swallowed. “For what?”

“For not knowing! For making you keep such a secret! And for talking about…about dissecting ghosts. For _all_ the terrible things we— _I_ —said about ghosts. I fired weapons at you, my own son! I genuinely tried to hurt you, Danny. And on several occasions, I very nearly succeeded! What kind of mother am I?” She felt all the tears she hadn’t been able to release since that terrible moment when she had thought that her son had crashed in the Speeder, and more, threatening to overtake her. After a moment of struggle, she relented.

“Mom!” Danny, apparently alarmed to see his mother cry, reached for Maddie’s hand, and held it tight. “Mom, you didn’t know!”

“But I should have! You were risking your life to protect the town, and you shouldn’t have—”

“I had to—”

“You shouldn’t have had to do it _alone_.”

There was a moment of shocked silence as Danny gazed at mother, eyes wide. 

Maddie continued: “I am so proud of you, Danny. Your father and I both are. And from now on, if you’ll have me, I promise I will be there to back you up every time.”

“Mom…” He tried to speak, but found that the words would not come. Instead, he wrapped his mother into an embrace. “There's no one else I'd rather have fighting next to me. I love you.”

“I love you too. And I always will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, thinking about Danny Phantom has been a nostalgia bomb. I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
